Library lecture: Sine Anahita on Blackface Peformance in Territorial Alaska

Tonight at 7 pm UAF associate professor of sociology and associate director of UAF Northern Studies Sine Anahita will be giving a talk for the John Trigg Ester Library's monthly lecture series. The talk will take place at Hartung Hall in Ester Village, a block east of the Golden Eagle Saloon's parking lot.

Anahita, a fiddler, has a special interest in music. Her topic is on blackface performance in territorial Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Americans were fascinated with blackface, where (mostly) white (and some black) performers painted their faces black, playing in shows for well over 100 years. How can blackface in the territorial Pacific Northwest be interpreted? In what context can we place blackface performance in relation to Alaska Natives and other colonized groups?

"Cake-walkers": a 1900 blackface minstrel show in Dawson, Yukon Territory. Grace Carr Raymenton Photographs, Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.